Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [113]
“By your leave!” cried a waiter, as he passed between them, holding in both hands a magnum of champagne in ice.
Nana moved a step in the direction of the room where Muffat awaited her.
“Well! good-bye,” said Daguenet. “Go back to your cuckold.”
“Why do you call him a cuckold?” she inquired, standing still again.
“Because he is a cuckold, of course!”
Very much interested, she returned to him, and, leaning up against the wall as before, merely said, “Ah!”
“What, didn’t you know it? His wife has succumbed to Fauchery, my dear. It probably first took place when they were staying together in the country. Fauchery left me just now as I was coming here, and I fancy they have arranged a meeting at his place for to-night. They have invented some journey, I believe.”
For some minutes Nana remained dumb with emotion. “I thought as much!” said she at length, slapping her thighs. “I guessed it the first time I saw her, you recollect, when we passed them on that country road. Is it possible, a respectable woman to deceive her husband, and with such a dirty blackguard as Fauchery! He’ll teach her some fine things.”
“Oh!” murmured Daguenet maliciously, “this isn’t her first trial by a long way. She knows perhaps as much as he does.”
“Really? Well, they’re a nice lot! it’s too abominable!” she exclaimed, indignantly.
“By your leave!” cried another waiter, passing between them, laden with several more bottles of wine.
Daguenet walked with her towards her room, and then held her for a moment by the hand. He assumed his crystal-toned voice—a voice that sounded like a harmonica, and which was the cause of his great success among the ladies.
“Good-bye, darling. You know I love you always.”
She released herself; and smiling on him, her voice drowned by a thunder of cries and bravos which shook the door of the room in which the party was being held, she said:
“Don’t be a fool; that’s all over now. But, all the same, come and see me one of these days. We can have a long chat.” Then, becoming very serious, she added, in the highly indignant tone of a most respectable woman, “Ah! he’s a cuckold. Well! my boy, that’s a confounded nuisance. I’ve always felt the greatest disgust for a cuckold.”
When she at length entered the room, she found Muffat, with pale face and trembling hands, resignedly sitting on a narrow sofa. He did not utter a single reproach. She, dreadfully excited, was divided between feelings of pity and contempt. The poor man, who was so shamefully deceived by a wicked woman! She had a longing to put her arms round his neck, and to console him. But yet it was only just; he was such a fool with women, it would be a lesson for him. Her pity, however, got the better of her. She did not send him off, after having her oysters, as she had intended doing. They remained a quarter of an hour longer at the Café Anglais, and then went home together to the Boulevard Haussmann. It was eleven o’clock; by midnight she would easily discover some pleasant means of getting rid of him.
When she was in the anteroom she prudently gave Zoé some instructions.
“You must watch for him, and when he comes tell him not to make any noise, if the other one is still with me.”
“But where shall I put him, madame?”
“Keep him in the kitchen; that will be the safest.”
Muffat was taking off his overcoat in the bedroom. A big fire was burning in the grate. It was the same room, with its violet ebony furniture, its hangings and chair coverings of figured damask, large blue flowers on a grey ground. On two occasions Nana had thought of having it altered—the first time she wished it to be all in black velvet, the second in white satin, with rose-coloured ribbons; but as soon as Steiner consented, she squandered the money she obtained from him to pay for it. All she had added was a tiger skin in front of the fire-place, and a crystal lamp that hung from the ceiling.
“I’m not at all sleepy; I’m not going to bed yet,” said Nana, as soon as they had shut themselves in.
The count obeyed her with the submission of a man who is no longer afraid of being